The beeswax. What is it? How to use it?

Beeswax is a natural product made by bees. This product has extraordinary uses in the natural cosmetics industry, in the restoration of furniture, wooden objects, candle making and many other uses. Therefore, it is a very useful product that we are going to let you know about. Furthermore, we will also give you fantastic tips on how to buy and use it. We also have it available in our shop, both in sheets and ingots. However, you have to order it by phone or email, as we do not have it available on the website.

Summary: Beeswax is a natural product ideal for making fantastic creams, soaps and other cosmetic products. A product that can be found in shops specialising in honey, such as ours in Las Rozas de Madrid. Here is some useful information for you to bear in mind when buying it. Here you can buy: anti-ageing creams, anti-wrinkle creams, regenerators, lip protectors, hand creams, hair loss shampoos, gels, soaps, body milk, etc.

Other interesting articles: Recipes of natural cosmetics with olive oil

1. What is beeswax?

Wax is a fatty substance secreted by the wax glands of young worker bees. The bees produce small flakes of transparent wax about 1.5 mm long and 1 mm wide.  The worker bees then crush them with their mandibles, grind them up and mix them with their own glandular substance.

Finally, they use it as building material to construct the cells and the honeycomb as a whole. This is done by gluing the lamellae together one after the other.

a) Other materials

Natural wax is produced by bees, but other synthetic materials can be used for other purposes. Among the most commonly used synthetic materials are

1. Paraffin wax: Paraffin wax is a by-product of petroleum, which is obtained during the process of refining crude oil into gasoline. This product is safe and the smoke it gives off during combustion is harmless, unless large quantities of smoke are inhaled. In this case, caution should be exercised.
2. Soy wax: This is obtained from soybean oil, a natural product that has the peculiarity of burning more slowly. For this reason, it is sometimes mixed with paraffin to accelerate its combustion speed.

b) Aromas given off by beeswax

The aroma given off by beeswax both when not combusted and during combustion depends on the type of pollen and nectar it contains.

2. Natural laminated or block wax

Beeswax can be purchased in two ways. Both are natural, but are offered by beekeepers.

• Rolled wax: Once the beekeepers remove the wax from the frames of the hive, they roll the wax. In this way they sell their wax in sheets about 5 centimetres thick.
• Block wax: After removing the wax from the frames of the hive, they melt it all down into a block of wax. In this way, they sell the wax in a whole block and sell it by the kilo.

Both types are natural wax, but depending on what you want to use it for, it will be better to buy one type or the other. For example, for candle making, you will probably be better off with sheets. For cosmetic uses, it makes no difference which form you buy it in.

Picture 1: Beehives with snow on top

In our shop we have beeswax available.

Currently, in our shop we have both formats of beeswax available. For this, please contact us and we will give you more information. Also, the beeswax we sell is conventional, exactly from a very reliable beekeeper. We also have organic beeswax, but this has to be ordered in advance and we can supply you with very little quantity, as it is very scarce.

Picture 2: Quote about honeybees

3. Beeswax for lip balms and creams

Beeswax is a fantastic natural product for the elaboration of creams, as it helps to create a film on the skin and to protect it. There are many recipes, and here we are going to give you some of them.

a) Anti-wrinkle cream with beeswax and extra virgin olive oil

The anti-wrinkle cream with beeswax and olive oil, is an easy to make and spectacular cream to moisturise the skin and delay the effects of ageing.

Ingredients:

1. 5 tablespoons of beeswax
2. 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:

1. Add the beeswax to a glass bowl and place it in a bain-marie.

2. Once the beeswax is liquid, add the extra virgin olive oil.

3. Wait for it to cool down

4. Once cold, it is ready to use.

Keep in the fridge.

4. Where to buy beewax?

Beewax can be bought from any beekeeper, who sells it to you in sheets or cast. Make sure it is 100 percent natural, as there are some who sell beewax for synthetic wax, as we will count below.

The Cortijuelo de San Benito, in Las Rozas de Madrid, can supply you with beewax, but this can only be purchased on request. We sell it in ecological and conventional sheets.

a) Advice: Selling fake wax

Markus Baermann, a specialist in beekeeping, bees and honey, has lost hundreds of hives, all valued at around 80 000 euros. It’s all his fault, the purchase of wax plates, which didn’t match the bees..

Imagine, you’re a worker and you’re oozing tiles all over your belly. “This saying literally translated from German, which is used by German beekeepers to explain how bees make their wax.

A beekeeping and honey expert from Germany, Markus Baermann, increased his queen bee hive a few years ago in order to obtain more hives. As a result, he had to buy additional wax sheets for his hives.

After a few months, Markus Bärmenn began to observe some damage to some of his hives without knowing the exact cause. As an expert in bees and honey, he is also required to travel frequently throughout south-west Germany for work purposes. After numerous trips and visits to a large number of hives, he also began to frequently observe the same symptoms found in his affected hives.

Finding these similar problems in numerous hives, he carried out research throughout Europe to find the cause of these damages. After careful research, he came to the unequivocal conclusion that whoever produced the beeswax sheets for the formation of the hives had a fierce desire for profit, as he made them from wax from China and other countries.

Samples of these waxes were taken to laboratories in Austria and resulted in the result that the beeswax that was sold as such was not beeswax, but another product. According to a beekeeper, it’s like beeswax, it looks like beeswax, it smells like wax, but it’s not wax.

Photo 3: honeycomb

b) A product that is lethal to honey bees.

According to reliable sources from Markus: “We know that at least 40 tons of fraudulent wax has reached the German city of Hamburg, from there it was taken to Belgium and then back to Germany. Also, China so well sold to other countries adulterated wax or mixed with quality wax. This artificial wax only costs 8 euros, a very profitable business, when natural wax in Germany costs about 50 euros.

This bee specialist cannot believe it, according to him: “This was brought to the market, knowing that it was a scam, because it is known that in natural wax sheets the holes in the cells are not defined. There is also no standard, which describes exactly how natural beeswax should be.

Heinrich Hammann, an employee in the wax sales sector in Hassloch in Remania-Pfalz, Germany, produces wax plates for beehives and is also the president of the Beekeepers’ Association in Remania-Pfalz, a province of Germany. He was cautious and according to him, the damages caused by this fraud have been very limited. Nor does he believe that this is a national or larger scale scandal.

Beekeepers in this province of Germany are confused.  Markus Baermann also prophesies that if this continues, quality beekeeping and raw honey will disappear from Europe.

It is clear that when you find a very cheap product on the market, something is hidden, and as my grandfather used to say very often, cheap is very expensive.

The next video where they see their hives and honeycombs with fraudulent wax, The video is in German, forgive me if it’s in another language, but I can’t do anything else.

5. Is beeswax edible?

Beeswax can be eaten and nothing will happen to you, but our body will not draw energy from it or any beneficial properties. Eating wax is like chewing gum, but with the discomfort that then sticks to your teeth. Therefore, it makes very little sense to eat wax.

6. Bee bread

Bee bread is the part of the honeycomb where the bees have stored their pollen. It is usually melted down and made into wax, but it can be eaten.

Photo 4: Bees care

Here I would like to tell you about my experience. After having read on several sites about the great amount of vitamins and how beneficial this product is, a few weeks ago I asked my beekeeper in Alcarria to bring me a piece of pollen. The truth is that I was very surprised, it looks a bit ugly but it is good, better than dried pollen.

7. Tricks

Here we are going to give some tricks and ideas to treat and do with the beeswax:

a) Remove the colour:

The natural colour of the wax is yellow, and when it is a pure wax, when burnt it burns with the characteristic wax aroma and without smoke. If we want the wax to take on a white colour, we must put it in the sun, and it will take on a white colour.

b) Cleaning wooden furniture with beeswaxs

Waxed wooden furniture, which is usually old furniture, can be treated as follows. First, we prepare a mixture of cold melted wax and semi-liquid turpentine. Then we clean the furniture thoroughly from dust and dirt. Once the dust has been removed, spread the mixture of wax and turpentine on the wood with a brush, but avoid getting too much on all parts of the wood. Let it dry for 2 days and then brush it off with a brush or a new, clean woollen cloth.

c) Beeswax candles

Making candles is very simple. Another thing is that we want to make figures and these are also candles. In short, we give you the methods to make some simple candles.

• With sheets of wax

Beekeepers sell their wax in sheets. These candles are very easy to make. First of all you need string and then you dip it in beeswax. Then the wax sheet is rolled up and the string is put inside it. There are some tricks to give different shapes to the candles. These can be found in various youtube videos.

• With diluted wax

To do this, we heat the wax until it becomes liquid. Once the mass is liquid, we pour it into a container and place the rope in the centre. We must hold the rope with something so that it does not fall to the bottom of the container. Once it has returned to its solid state, the candle is ready.

• With figure moulds

There are different moulds on the market to make candles with figures. To do this we would take the same steps as in the previous one, but pouring the liquid wax into the mould.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Source:

The German media

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